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Thomas Goodwin Hawson.

HOMAS GOODWIN LAWSON is intellectually one of

the strongest men in the State. He has had hroad experience as a farmer, legislator, judge of the courts and congressman. He is a man of high integrity and a courage which does not regard unjust criticism. His actions are determined by what he believes to be right and not by what some one else might want him to do. This characteristic of the man was plainly brought out when he cast his vote in Congress to seat a Republican instead of a Democrat because he believed the evidence showed the election of the one and the defeat of the other.

Judge Lawson was born in Putnam county on a farm, May 2, 1835. He did all kinds of farm labor and grew to be vigorous and strong, with robust constitution and a love for the country which abides. He attended the country schools, then of inferior kind. He graduated from Mercer University in 1855. He married Miss Mary Frances Reid, November 27, 1860.

Reese Lawson, the father of Judge Thomas Lawson, died at twenty-six years of age. He was a man of marked industry and sobriety. His mother, who was Miss Elizabeth Keaton, greatly helped to shape the moral and intellectual life of her son.

In 1856 Judge Lawson studied law under Ebenezer Starnes, ex-Justice of the Supreme Court. He received the degree of A. B. from Mercer University in 1855, and the degree of A. M. from the same institution in 1858. He began the active practice of his profession in Eatonton, January 1, 1857. He was made a member of the Legislature in 1861-62, 1863-64, 1865-66 and 1889-90. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1877. He was judge of the Superior Courts of Ocmul

gee circuit from 1879 to 1886, inclusive. He was a member of the Fifty-second, Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth United States Congresses. He has conducted large agricultural interests for many years and holds investments in several successful enterprises.

He has accumulated considerable property and has held many public positions, but he has never coveted wealth, office or position. Whenever called by the people to public service, he has had strong ambition to succeed, and the opportunity to be useful in service has been to him an inspiration. He is not what is known as a politician. As a State legislator in 1861, and the years following, he was the acknowledged leader of the party that struggled for the maintenance of the Confederate administration from the beginning of the war until the last banner trailed in the dust. All measures brought before the General Assembly antagonistic to the peace and the harmony of the Confederate States and hurtful to our own State were opposed by him in a manly, patriotic and fearless spirit. In the darkest days of the Confederacy, he stood more and more determined in the defense of constitutional liberty. He was the acknowledged leader in all measures that looked to the success of Southern arms and to the care and support of the families of indigent soldiers.

Judge Lawson's great powers of intellect and his sterling worth command the attention and the unqualified respect of the people. He has general and extensive information and large experience in public matters. His character is irreproachable. He reasons strongly. He is a deep and practical thinker, a forcible and eloquent speaker, an able lawyer, and an intellectual and cultivated gentleman. He is eminently a patriot and a statesman, worthy of all the honors he has won, and more.

Judge Lawson served nearly two years in the Confederate Army. For several years he has been a trustee for the State Sanitorium for the Insane and a member of the executive com

mittee, upon which devolves the care and maintenance of the institution.

As Judge of the Superior Court, Judge Lawson had the fullest confidence and highest admiration of the har and the people. Under his administration the humblest litigant had no fear of the denial of justice, while the most influential never had reason to hope for more than justice at his hands. His rare knowledge of the science of his profession, his acute sense of justice, equality and right, together with his spotless character, inspired in litigants and the public a respect and veneration for the arbitrament of the law most wholesome to society. Judge Lawson has always believed that the rights of persons and of property should be sacredly maintained; that justice and righteousness should prevail in all private and public transactions. These views he maintained and enforced positively during his administration of the courts and in all his public service as a law-maker.

While in Congress, he stood for Democratic principles, tariff for revenue only, the independence of the States, the reformation of the currency and banking laws. His speech before Congress on the repeal of the ten per cent tax on State bank issues made a profound impression and marked Judge Lawson as one of the ablest men in the country. Judge Culberson, himself a distinguished lawyer, pronounced the speech the strongest made in Congress in twenty years.

Judge Lawson is always courteous and kindly considerate. His manner is unassuming, even deferential, and yet he at once impresses strangers as a person of great latent force. He needs only the occasion and the opportunity to demonstrate his strong intellectuality, his argumentative force and his unusual power in public debate.

Judge Lawson has always been an earnest supporter of the common schools. He has given much of his time and wise counsel for the betterment of the State system. His address ad